Silverjet – FIA GT3 Dubai

The FIA GT3 Debut For The Jaguars

Having originally intended to debut at the first round at Silverstone in May, the Apex Jaguars arrived in the heat of Dubai for the final two races of the FIA GT3 Championship, after a year of frustration and hard work, but little track action (in FIA GT3s anyway – they had raced in the British Championship, and one of them had made the car’s debut in a 24 hour race, the Britcar 24). The sheer complexity of building and homologating the XKR had consumed most of the season, but now it was time to let the big cats stretch their legs on the international stage.

Stuart Scott would again be sharing his Silverjet-backed #47 with Chris Ryan, the pair having previously raced their car on its debut in the Britcar 24. Ryan also raced the car with Neil Cunningham (this weekend sharing the second XKR, #46, with local driver Karim Al-Azhari) in the final British GT meeting at Rockingham later the same month; both outings essentially being test sessions to determine the level of competitiveness of the new car.

In truth, the Dubai races were also mainly test sessions for the FIA series for 2008 and it needed a late decision to even be present; “We almost didn’t come,” said Stuart Scott, “but felt that we needed to take part for the credibility of the project at this level of racing.” Customs delays meant that the cars didn’t arrive at the Dubai Autodrome until late on Wednesday evening – a day and a half late – and thus removed any possibility of a relaxed setting-up process ahead of the commencement of track activity on the Thursday. It also contributed to an extended sunbathing session, that left the car’s owner with a distinctly glowing face.

The next morning, both cars passed scrutineering without issue and it was time to begin the driving. “I’ll be first out at 11 (for the first practice session), for a couple of laps, and then we’ll both do 20 minutes each,” said Scott.

With both drivers being new to the circuit, the first session would be all about getting to know their way round the 16 turns of the long and technically-demanding track; and by the end of the 60 minutes, a best time of 2:18.657 emerged from the 19 laps completed. “Both Chris and I found it very slippery out there (a result of the fine sand that covered the track). We were both using second gears through the slower corners, but were finding it too torquey for third. There’s chunks of time to be found later.“

In between the two practice sessions, as the cars were being readied, the drivers tried to relax in the hot conditions, with Surrey builder Ryan having other things on his mind. “Apparently it’s minus-four back home; and that’s too cold for rendering the walls.”

By the time the afternoon practice session arrived, the track temperature was an intimidating 58 degrees Celsius, but with the sun preparing to clock-off for the day that heat was beginning to dissipate; and the times began to improve. Scott spent the first half of the session on more set-up work before handing the car over to Ryan, who now found the car going much better than it had in the morning; an impressive four seconds faster by the end.

With the day’s event over, it was time to get back to the hotel for a night’s rest before qualifying the next morning; but that was easier said than done owing to the lack of taxis at the Autodrome. “We waited for a taxi for an hour and ten minutes without any success, and then one of the security guards said he would give us a lift into town,” explained Scott. “So we got in his jeep and he took us to the outskirts of the city. He then drew up alongside a taxi and flagged him down for us. He wouldn’t even accept any payment.”

With qualifying due to start at nine on Friday morning, Stuart Scott dutifully lined up in the pitlane with the rest of the field and waited for the lights to turn green; and waited; and waited. It turned out that the safety helicopter was fog-bound at Dubai airport and the session was delayed by 30 minutes. When it eventually started, the driver was sweating buckets (the temperature having risen ten degrees in the car in that half hour); and the first thing he found was a circuit covered in fine sand, making it as slippery as the previous morning.

Despite this, Scott knuckled down to business and made the most of his twenty minutes, setting his fastest time of the meeting so far, 2:17.881, to leave the car 33rd on the grid for that day’s race.

Chris Ryan continued this good work in the second session and improved his own best time by a further two seconds to qualify the car in 29th place for race two with 2:12.890.

Both drivers were feeling slightly disappointed, despite the improvements. “We’re further back than we thought we would be,” said Stuart Scott. “I’m enjoying it, but just want to go quicker,” added Ryan. And the pole time was raising a few eyebrows; “I thought this series was about equalisation,” said the CBT boss. “I couldn’t get to a 2:02 here in a month of Sundays!”

Nevertheless, both drivers were in good humour as they waited for the first race to arrive. “We could have qualified higher, but didn’t want to upset Neil and Karim,” said Ryan. “And if people say we’re lying – they’re right!”

“Podiums are so overrated,” added Scott.

The important thing was that the car hadn’t missed a beat so far in the meeting; and looked and sounded glorious to boot.

And so to the first race, which began on time despite the earlier delays (the power of live TV schedules), but in utter confusion after three cars were demoted to the rear of the grid after post-qualifying scrutineering infringements, and with another nine starting from the pitlane having missed the window. For Stuart Scott, then, the opening stage of the race was a much busier place than he had been anticipating; but his focus remained fixed on staying out of trouble and making steady progress.

Alas for Karim Al-Azhari in the sister car, this was not the case; and the #46 was out of the race after just five laps, after losing an argument with two Lamborghini Gallardos.

But Stuart Scott was soon into the swing of things, and after several laps found the car going better than ever. On lap eight, he improved his best time to 2:16.482; and the next lap improved by another half second. Alas, in his efforts to go faster, he was adjudged to have crossed the white lines too often and a stop/go penalty was issued.

Chris Ryan took the penalty on lap 14, having taken over from Scott three laps previously; but by this time he had already set the car’s fastest lap of the race; 2:12.511.

For the remainder of the race, Ryan stayed in the 2:13/2:14 bracket and stroked the car home to an encouraging 23rd place. But there was a surprise in store for the duo, as they were called up to the podium to collect the Jaguar Trophy; strangely, their reactions suggested that a podium visit wasn’t such a hardship after all.

On Saturday, the only track action for the GTs would be the final race of the Dubai Motorsport Festival, at 4.00, so the team and drivers had a leisurely start to the day, with the afternoon being filled by autograph sessions and team photo shoots. Spirits were high for another good result.

Chris Ryan began the second race with a firm goal; to stay out of trouble. “Having seen what happened to Karim yesterday, I just wanted to make sure that there was no danger of that happening to me at the start.” This strategy paid off, and by lap five he had already gone faster than he had in race one; and on the next lap he set the car’s fastest lap of the meeting; 2:11.789.

But two laps later, near-disaster struck. “I was going along quite happily when suddenly I lost all power,” said Ryan; “The car just stopped working.”

“This was so sudden that it took me by complete surprise; but then I remembered that this happened in testing earlier this year and frantically tried to remember what we did then. Then it came to me – I switched everything off and then back on again and it burst back into life. It was as good as gold after that.”

Chris Ryan handed over to Stuart Scott after sixteen laps, but the latter hardly had time to get into his swing before a safety car appeared on track and bunched everyone up. That disappeared with ten minutes of the race remaining, and it was once again a case of staying out of trouble and reeling off the last few laps without drama. This was successfully achieved and the CBT Jaguar XKR once more came home in 23rd place.

Alas for Scott and Ryan, Neil Cunningham and Karim Al-Azhari had managed to avoid predatory Gallardos on this occasion and finished four places ahead, claiming the trophy in the process.

The #47 duo were not disheartened however; “Say hello to the Jaguar world champions!” said Scott. It turned out that first and second this weekend was enough to be awarded the Jaguar Cup.

Both CBT drivers had thoroughly enjoyed Dubai, but now it was time to head off; Chris Ryan back to the cold of southern England and the day-job, and Stuart Scott to the heat of Oman for a week’s holiday.

This had been a highly encouraging weekend for Apex, and the team went into the winter break with much more essential data as it prepared for a full season of FIA GT3 racing in 2008.